Happy birthday Binding Blade. I decided I had to put out a video talking about my favorite Fire Emblem game, though I got it out a little late (technically I suppose it’s still the 29th in America, so I guess I’m good?). Anyway, here’s my 10 reasons for why I love Binding Blade. Enjoy!
Based on what you said about how you love world-building in books, I think you'd love Brandon Sanderson's books! That's his biggest focus in most of his books. The first series I recommend is Mistborn.
Have to agree with the less than optimal units. Honestly a game that gives us units like Wendy, to train them to become decent, and to see your efforts in action is a rather invigorating and fun experience. Even a disappointing experience is an experience either way.
Fun fact: Even Sakurai, the main developer behind Smash Bros, says that Roy is a bland protagonist. He said that he made the Smash Roy so mature and cool looking because that's the impression he got from him when they showed him the design but became disappointed when he played the game and realized he portrayed Roy wrong
He's not the most in depth lord of the series but I disagree that he's really that bland. The fault mostly lies in the games writing being extremely dependent on support conversations, meaning a lot just doesn't get seen in a regular playthrough. Also considering a lot of people could die they mostly just didn't use characters that could in regular cutscenes(which I find dumb) so Roy's chances to show himself were very limited in the regular plot. Noone would be able to show himself well if all he talked to were Merlinus and Elffin. Even a great character like Hector wouldn't be able to. So yeah, TLDR. Imo Roy not bad, fe6 Writing and relying on supports for character development bad
You're paraphrasing here, what he said is that Roy was not actually energetic. That doesn't automatically equal bland. Granted, that could very well be how he feels but afaik he's never said as much.
I agree with all of these points, especially the one about old Fire Emblems VS modern Fire Emblems in regards to differences in unit viability. I think it's so much more interesting to have a mixture of good and bad units because it makes the characters a lot more particular, and it also helps with replayability especially if you want to use a weaker unit for the challenge. Out of all the Fire Emblems, Binding Blade is easily one of the more replayable ones.
Alright you sold me Mangs, now I can’t possibly pass the FE that shares the same birthday as me and a friend of mine... Consider how quickly I fell in love with Jugdral after watching your rankings I’m pretty confident I won’t be disappointed with this one either.
I wasn’t really actively watching this video, more like a podcast while I was working on something but you’ve got me interested in Binding Blade! You’ve made solid compelling points and this was a fun video to listen to. I haven’t played or even watched binding blade so I’m going into it blind but I’ll throw around any favorites and see how it turns out. I love Perceval in feh so he’ll definitely be part of my roster (a bonus since he sounds insane).
Oh wow, what a coincidence. I'm about to start playing Binding Blade for the first time AND for my friends I'm going to do a Binding Dorcas stream on April Fools... Anyways, I do know a lot about the game despite not playing it, one of my favorite things about it besides the story is the soundtrack; Man does this game make you feel like you're in another world, it's truly something else. Another thing is the story. Roy's a cool character to me because of his accomplishments, at 15 years old he's leading a goddamn army and takes on not only Zephiel, a dude who wields a lance-sword hybrid that spits out lightning and casually swings around this massive blade like it's nothing, but also centuries old and powerful dragons like Yahn and Idunn... My only real problem with the game is since it's gameplay is a bit dated thanks to it being the first FE GBA (least that's what I think it is, stuff like low hit rates and throne buffs and axes being so bad among other things...). The title for the game alone is my favorite out of.. Well, might just be my favorite title for a FE game. Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn sound cool, but The Binding Blade just rolls right off the tongue... I know titles for a game don't matter much in the longrun, I'm just pointing out just how much Binding Blade is good. I can't wait to actually play the game and see for myself why both you and a lot of other people in the community like it so much!
I share a birthday with Advance Wars And Roy does a ton of interesting things in this story, I don't know why people say he's bland. The guy is fifteen and goes through a whole ass hero's journey and gains strength and notoriety throughout the campaign, and even leverages that later by tricking Etrurian Church into a huge no-win situation, by fighting under the banner of the Etrurian army with support from the prince. He's incredibly sly, moreso than probably any other lord in the entire franchise. Most of them are extremely, but Roy throughout chose to outmaneuver his opponents.
25:44 “If you wanna build the very best army, you can use all the A+ Tier Characters.” WRONG! If you wanna build the very best army, you can TRUST NOBODY!
Having the units in Binding Blade be "extreme" in the sense, of the units being garbage in some fields, very good in another is a really fun mechanic imo. The units become just porridge if they are all equally good in all fields. Let's take Barthe for example. Dude can't hit for shit, and he's not that much use in killing, but it sure is nice having him around late-game if trained enough, dude can take 2 Devil Axe Berserker crits to the face and still stand.
As a joke experience I only used bors on my fourth playthrough and it turned out to be really fun and entertaining, intill the final few chapters came up and were a pain to get through so I use Perceval to help myself get through the final chapters and beat the game
Agree with you on the supports, except for the fact that later recruits have the same time required to build supports even though they're not available to use for very long. Secret endings are cool, its just unfortunate that due to the structure of FE, they're not as easy to pull off. I think of Octopath traveler where the true ending is hidden behind a series of seemingly unrelated quests which happen throughout the game until the final one unlocks after you've beaten all the characters stories. That was well pulled off and extremely rewarding as it brought everything together. In terms of unit balance, I definitely agree that not everyone should be equal. I don't mind the hit rate issues when using the normal good and decent units however I think that the weak hard to train units combined with the bad hit rates make some units a bit too weak. If some of the weaker units ended up slightly stronger it wouldn't be so bad. As for the rest of the points, I really agree with you! Something about FE6's story really feels real and the whole world and setting always gets me excited. Even though its far from perfect, FE6 is definitely my favourite GBA FE
Interesting thing to note on point #5--Cecilia (funny she's mentioned in this segment as well) says to Lilina in their support together, that she didn't teach Roy how to use magic or Lilina how to use a sword, because she knows that they aren't good at those things, that they should stick to their strong suits. Inequality in ability, both compared with others and within one's self, is reality, and it seems FE6 knows this.
WHOA! i just read Ingrene's support, and man you're right... That's powerful. And then when you read Astolfo's supports with Gwendolyn and Bors and how those add to their story... That's great character development! K, you have me convinced. I'm starting an FE6 play through in the morning, and I'm giving it a shot with all of them!
I've played Binding Blade like 20 times, not even lying. I really like it a lot even if it's clunky compared to later gbas. Hardest of the three, great music, and some of my favorite maps in the series.
Currently playing the game for the first time on a gba. I've lost pretty much every good unit in the early game so i hope the late game units can carry me through the rest. I am right now on chapter 12 useing mainly Lot, Marcus, Klein, Noah and Elffin. I gotta make the best of what i got now that i lost Rutger and Clarine
I surprised to hear about loving the massive battlefield and the sheer amount of units making it feel like you are fighting an actual army i had though you had your fill of that just from chapter 26 of path of radiance maniac mode Sanity Breaks
Saul w/o Supports: Womanizer who puts Job second Saul w/ Supports: Guy who's REALLY into his faith, having even put a higher level of thought into it, but who's still held down by his sins (sloth and lust, in his case) Noah w/o Supports: Level-headed guy; the tool you use to recruit Fir Noah w/ Supports: The opposite of Treck; a man born in the wrong time, who cares too much for what his circumstances actually require, and who tries to hide that fact behind a grizzled shell Treck w/o Supports: A doofus-looking schmuck who seems mentally absent Treck w/ Supports: The opposite of Noah; a man who DOESN'T care about anything, other than wanting other people to do well, with ambiguity around what made him so at-peace with his situation to be asleep in the middle of battle Roy w/o Supports: A kid doing his duty, nothing more, though with certain select cares that might shine through for some people Roy w/ Supports: A kid well-aware of his own deficiencies, mortified of screwing up in a manner that would have his sworn men and friends killed, who ultimately finds happiness with Lilina IF YOU DON'T EFFING SCREW IT UP
Binding Blade was my first GBA Fire Emblem, and it was a kick in the balls. Had I researched, I might well have been convinced to play Blazing Blade or Sacred Stones first instead of playing them in chronological order. I really do enjoy it, and it has a strong older feeling, and one of being the bridge between what Kaga made and what he was leaving behind. Also, good boy Geese is not forgettable and I think you meant Zeiss because Gale living or dying has no affect on reaching 21x. I do have things that I would have liked to have had implemented to improve it however: 1 Scale down some of the early game difficulty 2 Remove ambush reinforcements 3 Inability to use items at the base
Binding Blade is probably one of my top 5 Fire Emblem games but I feel like the only points I can really agree with are #4 and part of #7. Points #1-3 and #8 are just personal preference. The problem with #10 is that I think from a story perspective the true ending is more like a normal ending with the shorter one being a bad end. And in regards to your points about the characters my main problem is precisely that the game has a huge roster with a lot of units being bad and the supports growing as slowly as they do. On my first playthrough I unlocked about 6-8 supports, I didn't have any idea that Igrene and Astore have a support and so forth. This is even worse with bad characters since almost all of a unit's character is locked behind grinding supports but there's no real incentive to use them if you don't like their design. Base conversations would really help with this kind of thing since you can get a glimpse of character even from people you are not using. If you're willing to play through the game a bunch of times for the sole reason of using different characters to see their supports it might get better but from a first impression standpoint I don't think the game really succeeds on that front. I have no idea if there is any difference in personality between Alan and Lance for example and I don't even remember which is which. They're people you start the game with, I took both of them to the endgame and I still remember nothing distinct about their characters. For reference I can easily distinguish personality and design between Kent and Sain or Kyle and Forde. Also the map design in gaiden chapters was a mistake.
I never get why Mangs always mentions Percival as the big broken prepromote and not Miledy. She is easily the most broken unit in FE6 with dummy high bases and growths making her snowball so quickly that she can just fly across the map and destroy hordes of enemies while Percival is still stuck in a forest. Like the chapter where you get Percival, Miledy can just fly over the mountain and destroy the boss and beat that map on the same turn you even manage to recruit Percival lol. But besides from my petty comment I'd say that FE6 is my favourite game in the series to replay just because I find it so fun to play. The story and characters are both very meh imo, not bad just kind of bland overall though there are some gems in there (along with some stinkers). I agree that FE6 world building is pretty good, I just don't think that its used that well in conjunction with the characters (I'd say Tellius does a much better job of integrating the world building into the characters). Wouldn't say its my overall favourite game in the series due to its meh story but definitely the game I always want to replay the most just because its so goddamn addicting to play.
There's only two things I don't like about Binding Blade. 1. This games hates axes. 2. It seems like there are a lot of early game bosses that are Berserkers that can kill you with BS criticals. Other than those two things, great game.
Binding Blade doesn't hate axes, if anything, it probably has the best balance around them. Almost every game since FE7 has been dominated by axes. FE7 - Axes are the best combat option by far because most of the enemies are Lance users and Hand Axes are way too accurate. FE8 - Lances are the best, only due to the fact that all of the best classes to use, Paladin/Wyvern Knight, don't have access to axes. FE9 - Axes rule, next best weapon type doesn't even compare. FE10 - Axes rule, next best weapon type doesn't even compare. FE11 - Forging/Ballisticians. FE12 - Doesn't really have one particular weapon type that destroys the entire game. FE13 - Axes/Magic. FE14 - Axes rule because Lance/Hidden weapons are the most common enemy weapon, wyverns are the best class. FE15 - Bows because forging. FE16 - Axes/Bows.
Still doing my first playthrough of FE7, trying to play as many FE games as I can. I also manged to get a copy of Sacred Stones, would you recommend I play Binding blade or Sacred Stones next?
FE 6 is definitely one of the best games in the series, I full heartily agree that the large cast of mediocre units is so much more fun then a smaller cast of overpowered ones. Bad units are fun to use and that is a fact, while rescue dropping and warp skipping maps is fun, I feel there is as much if not more fun in struggling to match the power of an enemy. For instance when I first played Arcadia for the first time and I saw a manakete just randomly in the fog, I was so much more proud of myself for beating that single enemy then when 90% of my army can solo an entire map like in FE 8. There also is a special charm in the way the characters are designed, while there are very similar units like the 4 cavs they are all unique in there own way, such as Alan and Lance both join chapter 1, but Lance is faster and Alan is strong and then Noah and Treck join chapter 7 and their higher weapon ranks make them a bit more unique with Noah very close to promotion if somehow the Christmas cavs aren’t there yet, and Treck just being fun to use in my opinion because of how mediocre he is
I don't think it's fair to matter of factly state that using bad units is "fun" though, especially when they're binding blade bad. Bad units can certaintly be fun to use, as is the case with Donnell, mozu, nino, est, etc. The difference between those bad units, and binding blade bad units is that there's an objective feeling of success after training these units due to the fact they're carried by their high growths. Binding blade bottom tiers like Wendy, bors, wolt and especially Sophia on the other hand don't carry anywhere near the same pay off for your struggle raising them as nino, mozu and Donnell do. I felt like binding blade went too far introducing a power gap between units, as certain characters were needlessly made awful just to make others look better on comparison, whereas awakening in my opinion went about it more organically by making the whole cast usable, while making a lot of units better than others (robin > ricken and miriel, Frederick > sully and stahl, etc). A whole cast of usable units allows for a lot more diversity in player choice, which is a huge plus.
I'll always disagree on your point to unit balance, bases/how much unit can contribute on join is enough for me to distinguish them. I'd hate if most people were just destined to be mediocre no matter how much I try to bias for them. And following Three Houses discussion from pre release to now, there was a lot we didn't know and a lot of new information that really rocked what we thought of a lot of characters, the doubling arts the glorious rise of Bernadetta from Rengor's 0% run. The power levels still wary wildly, playing AM you're going to have Ingrid strugging to go into double digits damage, when at the same time you can recruit Catherine who's going to quad and 2HKO anyone. Why is it that the possibility of weaklings rising to glory devalues these titans to you? No matter how much you meme, the titans will always be stronger.
3H is a bit of an anomaly and one I should probably have mentioned as an exception, since there are so many other variables that dictate character viability aside from just bases and growths. When I talk about the “everyone is good” syndrome, I am mostly referencing Awakening & Fates, which are notorious for having great overall growths for most units (with a few exceptions). In these two games, the good units feel less special to me, since almost anyone can become good with enough investment. In games like Binding Blade, there’s a clear power disparity between units, and as a result, the units who are good seem a lot more special since they are surrounded by a lot of average units. I’m not saying that buffing all the weaklings would make the titans less viable, but it would make them seem less special. Rutger for example, is a unit that stands out because he is one of the only characters on your team for quite a while that can one-round enemies by himself. If you had multiple other characters capable of pulling this off in the early game, it would make Rutger feel less special. To quote the Incredibles: “When everyone is special no one is”
@@Mangs1337 Fates (or at least CQ) growths doesn't make anyone trivialize the game by the long shot, it's nothing like Awakening letting you feed 10 levels to anyone make them rout maps by standing in place with a javelin, they don't even make them compare to the royals. What they do is give everyone competent enough stats to survive and/or contribute in a certain way in their join maps and a few afterwards. Odin can Nostank, Niles can ORKO mages/fliers, Effie is close to OHKOing frail people etc. I fail to see how a full party of people with thought put into their gameplay design is worse than a bunch of unfun to use scrubs that make a guy buffed by a glitch look better. How is it more realistic for an army to keep around a bunch of people that are borderline incapable of combat as opposed to an army that keeps around a bunch of people at the very least capable of doing a specific thing? Is it really that much a problem for you that you can give Arthur a pair up, bunch of tonics and a meal to ORKO a specific enemy type in one chapter? I'm still exaggerating, most of the cast isn't even that good, Mozu, Peri, Charlotte (as a unit and not a backpack), many of the kids never feel worth using, but even with all them included, CQ has a much smaller cast, but would giving you 15 extra Wolts spread around early game actually make people feel more special?
Hey Mangs great video, I agree that FE 6 is pretty underrated. here's what I think about your points. 1. I think the worldbuilding in FE 6 isn't really that great, its just better than a lot of the other Fire Emblem games where countries have no culture and they are all basically monarchies. The countries of FE 6 honestly feel just like the characters: they have cooky cutter personalities (Bern-meritocratic military empire, Etruria-country of refined nobles and high inequality, Ilia-economically depressed tundra where everyone tills soil or becomes a mercenary) but at least they have a personality. They feel like they have a culture more than the nations of say fe 8, and in fe 9 it felt like each country was defined more by its race and monarch than by its culture and history. 2-3. These are good points as well, although I'll add that FE 6 does war better because it feels like an ENTIRE CONTINENT of multiple countries has been engulfed in war. In FE 9 Dain poses a threat to Gallia sure but the entire war was really just Dain vs Crimea and it felt like Dain conquered Crimea in the beginning and then kinda just waited and did nothing for most of the game. In FE 8 grado gets taken out half way thru, in FE 10 all the conflicts are super contrived so they lose weight, in FE 13 its really just ylissse versus Plagia, and then valm, and then grima's underlings, and FE 14 was just Nohr vs Hoshido. FE 6's Bern felt like a real threat and their characteristic wyvern knights were always some of your strongest opponents so coming to fight a huge hoard of wyvern lords in Bern feels really epic. 4. I also enjoy hard mode. I like how even in later chapters a lot of units struggle to one round. The enemies in games where every single unit one rounds and survives multiple attacks feel super weak causing the villains to not feel threatening, and FE 6 successfully avoids that. 5. I strongly disagree with the notion that having garbage characters who you can poor incredible amounts of resources into and still turn out mediocre is a good thing. For example, Fates maintains power inequality while still making every unit usable. In conquest, Xander, Camilla, and Corrin are gods while units like Odin could get insane levels of investment and would still struggle to compare. To argue that Hana and Ryoma are just as good would be insane. Sometimes it sounds like u complain that modern FE's don't have unusable units and I'm still not convinced that's a bad thing. Also, the closer units are in power the MORE discussion people have because the more debatable the unit's placing on a tier list becomes. And there are still a lot of units that are underrated like Cecilia. A lot of people underrated Jakob (female corrin) in conquest before they realized his potential through reclassing and many people still don't understand that Saizo is a god in birthright. I also think its more realistic and more fun to have investment be what determines which units become the best in a playthrough. In real medieval combat which soldiers were better trained and had better armor and weapons and cooperated the best played a larger role than simply a couple individual soldiers being Gods on the battlefield 6. Supports in FE 6 are super hit and miss, I agree with your points and love concise but meaningful conversations but I think the whole support system in gba is bad. Midbattle supports and forcing characters to end their turn next to each other is way worse than the path of radiance and awakening/fates system 7. Also good point Fe 6 has some really good maps but it becomes a mixed bag because of every single map having the same objective and the roughly equal number of garbage maps. 8. This is a good point as well I love how quickly the army grows in FE 6 I don't how a lot of FE's make u start out with a 1-3 unit prologue and by chapter 7 u still only have like 8-12 units. When the roster grows to slowly it makes it feel like you still haven't hit the "real" game yet and like your still part of some sort of beginner area 9. I disagree with this point as well I think having a small-medium roster makes it so that each unit likely has a niche that makes them different but a giant roster means some units are simply better in every conceivable way then other units making everyone less unique. 10. Secret Ending- good points, nothing to add 11. Personally one of my favorite aspects about FE 6 is how it way more player phased focused than enemy phase focused, which makes the game a lot more strategic and like I the player am doing most of the work instead of just waiting in enemy ranges and watching a massacre occur.
1:59 #1: Roy’s Story is focused on the Continent, World Politics, Weapons 5:31 #2: The Game feels like a Journey 7:12 #3 Nation At War 8:48 #4 Hard Mode, challenging but beatable, and fun 11:44 #5 Some Units Are Sorta Bad 17:34 #6 Supports 20:40 #7 Map Design, Some Maps are Spectacular 22:22 #8 A small army grows quickly 24:05 #9 A HUGE Roster 26:43 #10 The True Ending is Fufilling
I ended up playing binding blade recently with a group of friends and found myself enjoying it way more than I did on my first playthrough. I resonate with the feeling that you have if you bring one of the scrub lord units in the beginning across the whole game. I ended up using fucking Bors of all people and not only did he have a surprising amount of dialogue I didn’t know existed, but he ended up being really fucking good and I watched this nerd turn into a monster who couldn’t die and had 15 move by the end of the game lmao.
I love the Gaiden chapters needing certain requirements and the secret ending stuff too Paralogues in the modern games just dont have the same feel to them for some reason
Today everything has to be showed in front of you to not risk to scare the player away. I don't wanna spoiler three houses but there is one thing on a certain route that was originally hidden a lot harder then in the final product. And I have to say that I was often frustrated when I wanted to obtain the true ending but I sticked playing the game to get it. And I earned the true ending as my reward. And it was so satisfying.
Swordmasters were too good in fe6 though. +30 crit is insane for example. Also... Fe6 being that dodgy helps them a LOT. Snipers are also useful yeah, but mostly just bc of that 3× effectiveness
@@piojoaquinlopez8881 The only problem with the archers is actually getting them to snipers. On average theyre not bad after that. They have reliable 2 range in a game where javies and hand axes have crap hit. Chapter 7 and 8 have great uses for archers. Sure, theyre not great units. But never said they were. They are DECENT. I usually ditch them for a nomad at the WI, cuz the mount is too good, but the amount of scary fliers in the game make effective damage against them useful.
@@Timmio. 3x effectiveness is sooo good. Helps that theres plenty of fliers for them to either shoot down alone or take off most of the HP from. And yeah...swordmasters are so nice. I like the change of pace with them in my army and actually contributing.
I'm glad you acknowledged the scale that comes with facing Bern, it's one of the reasons why I think the villains of FE6 are the best in the series as they feel like the most threatening through gameplay
If you're really into world building, you absolutely have to play Xenoblade definitive edition when it comes out. The game has some really incredible lore, as well as some great characters
Xenoblade is a franchise I've always wanted to get into, but when I played XC2, I didn't like the automatic battle system. It just feels like I'm watching a battle take place as I wait for the specials to recharge. It's a shame because everything else about the game was fantastic... I want to give it a second chance once DE comes out, but just so I know, is the battle system the same or is it more "immersive" than 2?
@@BeeLy1011 It's similar in many respects. As a huge fan of Xenoblade 1 myself, even I admit that the core combat is not quite on par with the incredible music and world. But it has merits that are not present in XC2, primarily the vision mechanic. Not too far into the game, Shulk gets visions of major incoming attacks, and it's up to you to determine how you respond to them. Perhaps you use a Monado Art to block the attack, or perhaps you tell your healer to heal the party to absorb the blow, or perhaps you try to redirect the enemy's aggro, or stun the enemy, or use a chain attack or just KO the enemy, or... you get the idea. Additionally, most Arts have timer-based cool downs rather than requiring auto-attacks to hit. Plus each character has way more than 4 arts accessible per battle. The very early game combat is still rather slow, but things pick up significantly by the time the 4th character joins the party. Overall, I'd say XC2 has more variety in party building and more ways to optimize damage output, but XC1 lets you interact with enemies more, primarily through the vision mechanic.
#11 The story also happens DURING the missions. You witness important events while playing the game rather than experiencing gameplay and story separately. This greatly improves the pacing and adds to the storytelling.
That first point is really interesting. I've always held the opposite to be true: If you have good, established, developed characters, the world doesn't need to be that interesting. That point also builds on something Mangs said forever ago that stuck in my mind for some reason about Fates, that you never get a feel for the world, what it looks like, where you are. The map annoyed Mangs, which was something I just never noticed but couldn't un-see after he pointed it out. The fact that that in particular annoyed him makes more sense in light of this.
Both are true, if only for different people.But having only one will no doubt put one of those group of people off, while very good stories can have the cake and eat it too(like the big succesful shonen ).Or alternatively those stories are set in our world, in that case they only have to focus on the characters and their actions, and eventually the fantaisy element they add(for example persona)
Iol this reminds me of my father. I was born like a week before his birthday but he wanted my mom to hold me for a week so we shared birthdays. A bit messed up, specially because my lil half bro was closer to his birthday than me
This was my second fire emblem game after the blazing sword and I fell in love with this game. The character supports kept me entertained and the story is really good. I find characters like hugh, lugh, chad, rutger, and clarine to be some of my favorite in the series and I'm just mentioning a few. Zepheiel is a great antagonist and he connects blazing sword to binding blade in my opinion. The level design is also good and the hard mode is difficult just the way I like it. I wish it had paired endings but even without that I love this game and I think it is a solid entry in the series. Sacred stones is my favorite but this one will always be second place to me.
This video released at a really interesing time, I actually just finished the game for the first time a few hours ago! My initial thoughts are that while it's not my favorite, it was still an enjoyable experience. I think I'll come back to play hard mode eventually, but other games in the series are more intriguing at the moment. I respond to your points one-by-one (sorry in advance for incoming essay): World, Not Characters: I think the world building for FE6 is pretty solid, especially considering the technical limitations at the time. I like when the narritive gives context to each battle, and why people are fighting. When you get past the early-game bandits, I think FE6 executes that context fairly well. Also, every location does feel pretty distinct from other places. The Game is a Journey: I do agree here, this game really does feel like a grand, epic journey across a continent, and I think it does that due to each location feeling distinct, as mentioned before. War, Not a Skirmish: I think it does feel like a war, but only after the Western Isles is finished. Only when Bern throws the red hell that are wyverns at you does it feel like an important conflict. Hard's Rough, Not Unfair: Can't comment here, first playthrough was Normal Unit Power Inequality: I completely agree that inequality between units is a good thing, although I think the gap between best and worst units in FE6 is a bit excessive. Although my favorite FE gameplay wise is Radiant Dawn, so maybe I'm talking out my ass here. Using a bad unit like one of the armors is what can make a playthrough more interesting, and can lead to a more memorable experience. I'll at least say for certain that inequality makes things more interesting, at least when replaying a game Supports: Short and Sweet: Much like you Mangs, the only chain I finished is Roy and Lilina's. Not much I can say here about the supports themselves, although I will say the way you acquire supports is just plain dumb. Certain S Tier Maps: Like you mentioned, there are some bad one's that are particularly annoying. Although I will say that throughout the game I was never bored at map being to simple or easy, so I'd say FE6 is good at keeping you engaged. A Quickly Staffed Army: I must applaud this game for hitting the happy medium of having a lot of options early game, while not overwhelming the player. The degree of choice the game gives you is actually really cool. Two Million Characters: I think a roster of any amount is fine, as long as characters don't become nameless, faceless generics. I don't think Binding Blade does this, so it's giant roster is fine-by-me. Secret, Satisfying Ending: I'm fine with a super-duper-secret ending, but with Binding Blade's execution there are some caveats. For context, I did look up on serenes how to get all the gaiden chapters, so I did get the "true" end. The ending itself is fine, I think it's a nice and suitable wrap-up, but the fact you have to get them through chapters you might not know about is dumb. If the game expessly stated when and how you unlock gaiden chapters, I'd like gaiden chapters - and a hidden ending - a lot more. Overall, I had a lot of fun! Some frustrating bits too (looking at you 20B) but it's all part of the FE experience. I definitely think it has flaws, but I can understand why others love it. If I had to rate it, I'd give it a 7/10. (Oh, and if anyone sees this: thanks for reading my thoughts. It's nice to have your opinions' heard)
Rewatching this after I finally played through it and got the true ending, and all I can say is, this is all stuff I agree with. HOWEVER, my one big problem with it is how it can knock the wind out of you, especially with the ambush spawns, and it seems to promote looking up a guide. Where in chapter 21(the one where you battle Murdock, if I am wrong forgive me), where to the South of the beginning area is an area that can spawn about 5 paladins and 3 dracoknights, even on easy mode, and while I enjoyed the challenge, the way it promoted looking up the spawns unless you wanted to be overwhelmed really soured my taste for that chapter. Also, I should mention that I was trying to get the true ending, by looking up the requirements only, which may have resulted in me having a bigger challenge, but I still had fun for the most part.
Every FE game that uses 2 RN operates on that logic. The only reason it appears worse in FE6 than others games, is because getting hit by a low displayed hit or missing with a high displayed hit, actually has consequences due to the higher quality enemies. Missing a 90 in FE7 or FE8 doesn't matter much in most situations, because the enemies pose such an insignificant threat to the good units like Marcus, Seth, Lowen and Franz, that rarely does that miss ever lead to someone actually being lost.
Part of the reason I love character power level being so varied is that I like using bad units. There are plenty of fun bad units in FE6 that I've gotten great memories of solely because they got rng blessed or were more useful than expected. That's just part of the fun of playing FE in my opinion.
Your point about RD having large cast but you don't play with all of them is WRONG. Because the way the game splits the cast into different routes, you DO play with many of them. That's the whole point. If you got large cast all at the same time, it's where you are having trouble to making use of them all because of limited units you can bring into battles. RD circumvented this and letting you play with many of the units since they all appear in different battles for large chunk of the game.
“The *three* main lords” *”Eliwood and Hector”* Anyways, I find myself agreeing with....every point. Everything you said, is something I enjoy from Fire Emblem. And...funnily enough...most of those can be applied to Shadow Dragon. Anyways, this inspires me to actually go finish Binding Blade for once. Nice Video.
1: The story focuses on the World, not the Characters I suppose that's technically true in Shadow Dragon, only because the focus on characters is almost nonexistent, but I would never say the world of Archenea, as shown in Shadow Dragon alone, is all that fleshed out. Hell, I'd say Camus is about as/more fleshed out than any piece of worldbuilding I saw in Shadow Dragon. The game just doesn't focus much on story, period, neither the world nor the characters get much time to be at all interesting outside of Caeda, Tiki, and the Camuu/Nina situation. It rarely ever tells you more than the bare minimum of what it needs to establish. The houses are a little funny though, I guess. 2: The game feels like a Journey I'll give it that much, it's certainly a journey. I would argue not a fun one, but that's not what I'm getting at here. 3: It feels like a War, not a Skirmish Yup, I'll give it that too, you certainly fight a lot of dudes and get a lot of dudes. I would argue that the war doesn't have any tangible steaks, after all, if neither characters nor the world get the time to be developes, what's at steak, as far as the player is concerned, if they lose? The only answer I can come up with is your pacience. 4: Difficulty is a challenge, without being unfair I am absolutely possitive this is not one of the points you thought applied to Shadow Dragon, and if it is, Hard 5 would like to have a word with you. 5: Not all units are balanced, some are better than others Yeah, but in Shadow Dragon, that's more of a weakness than a strength. In FE6, there is actually a point to using the less good units, they have chapters where they can be useful, because the game actually does a good job of spreading these units out to the point where they even get that opportunity. Shadow Dragon actively does the opposite at every chance it can get, with the best example being Chapter 2, giving you Bord, Cord, and Darros if you recruit him, on the exact same chapter as Barst, who is the exact same unit, but just better. The only one with a slight edge over Barst is Bord, and that difference simply isn't tangible.The only reason you would ever use them is if you're meming or if Barst died on an Iron Man run. They do not have a chance to shine, even with reclassing, and because they are absolutely nothing except "Barst but worse", there is absolutely nothing interesting about using them regardless. In FE6, units have enough character to make them interesting enough to use even when bad. It also doesn't leave room for much discussion, because what's there to say about units that are objectively worse the moment they show up other then "check out my meme build", and there's also very little "finding out which units are good or bad" because whether they're worse is almost always immediately obvious. I guess it does add realism still, just not any interesting realism, but still realism, so I'll give it that. 6: Supports They don't exist, so surely this isn't one of the points you meant. Moving on. 7: The game has extremely Good Maps ...yeah, no, I'm pretty sure even fans of Shadow Dragon agree that it's map design is piss poor. They all range from either boringly passable with a little bit of walking simulator mixed in to downright awful (ballistician map). 8: You get a lot of Characters Right Away Yes, this is true, but his points as to why this is a good thing don't really apply to Shadow Dragon. It doesn't matter if you can pick out a roster early if there's nothing there that's interesting about picking out a roster. In order for that to be a plus, the characters actually have to have something about them that makes them interesting enough to pick. Shadow Dragon doesn't really have this unless you're meming, so you'll probably just pick the best units regardless. 9: The game has a Huge Roster Yes, this is true. I'd point out why this isn't really a plus for Shadow Dragon, but not only did I kinda already do that, the egg did it for me. It doesn't matter how large the roster is if the roster is so generic that the choice between units doesn't matter. 10: Secret Ending Shadow Dragon doesn't have one, so clearly you didn't mean this one. Moving on. So, out of all 10 points made in this video, 6 of them *technically* apply to Shadow Dragon, but only 2 end up being a substantial plus (the game feeling like a journey and the game feeling like a war and not a skirmish). Of the other 4 that technically apply to Shadow Dragon but aren't a substantial plus, most of it comes down to the big roster just not mattering at all and the story just not being focused on very much in both worldbuilding and characters. In terms of Worldbuilding, the only substantial thing we get is the history involving dragons and how it resolved, which FE6 did way better, and as far as characters go, we got Camuu/Nina (both of their substantial character things happen because of each other), Tiki/Nagi cause they're the same character at different points, and Caeda, who is the one character consistently interesting throughout, even if only interesting in comparison to every thing else, which I don't feel like I need to mention that FE6 dwarfs it in characters too. Really, FE6 just feels like everything Shadow Dragon wanted to be. Every plus that can be applied to Shadow Dragon, as far as this video goes, FE6 does significantly better. Sorry if this seems overly aggressive, I'm just a very thourough person who really wished Shadow Dragon was a better game, so when people compare these two games, I feel the need to point these things out. I did this for discussion purposes, not to just try to shut down what you said.
I think Binding Blade is a good game but...it not great in my opinion like the units in Binding Blade are either gods, meh or just trash...which is a problem in my opinion also the cast is...way too much like holy shit. I mean units can be balanced by having some unique....for example, Berwick Saga showed us how units can have their own unique skills or have something unique to help them stand out like for example the main lord of the game Reese whos bases aren't that good and in Berwick Saga growth rates are low but even so, he can still fight pretty well and his Commander skill is super helpful (alongside spoilers but...I won't get to that) as hits rates are low as hell. Another example is Marcel and Derrick (or 150) both of them aren't great in fact they are pretty low on the tier list heck Derrick is meme tier in that game but he is still usable unlike in Binding Blade where some units are trash as hell best example Wendy and Spohia...they both suck. In fact, that reminds me...Mangs you would love Berwick Saga as it has a good story and world-building heck I would call it Kaga masterpiece. So please...play it!
Playing Binding Blade now, one thing that really puts me off loving the game (it feels great and could be my favourite) is the accuracy problems. I played SS -> Blazing -> Binding as a newcomer (also PoR, 3H, and Awakening in between), and the accuracy is so low compared to everything else I’ve played that it makes it really frustrating to play. Sometimes I do need to abuse save states to beat a boss, which I’m not proud to admit. Also, the enemy spam, especially in the Sacae route I accidentally stumbled into, makes the maps very tiring to play. I can’t sit down for 2 hours and clear two, three chapters like I can for other games where the maps energise instead of tire me (Fe7 also suffers from the same problem, but much later into the game). I’m not done with the game due to burnout, but I hope to finish it soon.
Gonna do a hard mode playthrough where I fore myself to field all of my armor knights/generals every map. To be honest binding blade is my favorite and first game of fire emblem I have every played. I love it for all your reasons and more. ROYS OUR BOI ROYS OUR BOI ROYS OUR BOI
So I was able to finish Binding Blade today (finally). It was a long ride for me and man these journey through Roys Game... what a journey it was. I evolved a special relationship to this game honestly. Started it when I was doing last projects for school whenever I took a longer break at the evening and it started out pretty cool. I really liked it at first glance but my biggest mistake was probably to spoiler me too much. I was obviously aiming to get the true ending but got some trouble on the way. Units that I need to gain certain gaiden chapters died long after I wrote over the save files where that happened and such stuff. So I restarted a few times and eventually a lot of small things started to annoy me (like the not so great RNG for example). I would've gone so far to say that it's the only FE that I really hate. In the end however I began to form a bond with this game. Especially when the Ilia/Sace-Route Split begins and your group is mainly promoted it gets really fun. And I'm glad I started over one last time. Gathering all the stuff I need and two turned Idunn in the end. The game wasn't able to beat me that easily - and it was really satisfying once I've done it. And the cutscene at the end was so cute. Worth it. Elibe has a lot more lore and story going on then I thought. And the story of Idunn and Zephiel is very touching too. I'm a bit sad that I couldn't use Treck since he died always dunno why. It was like a curse or something. Next time I will probably try to raise Sophia just for the lolz. Once I met Niime I wondered what the hell they we're thinking while designing Sophias Base Stats. It was fun to raise her weapon rank to S and she could do some apocalyptic things to the manaketes in the final chapters. Marcus died as well so I used Jerrot a lot and later on Juno as well. I got their A Support and enjoyed every line I read. They're a cute family. It was also only my final run where I used Thea and I'm glad there as well. Sadly that meant I had less screentime for Sue but in exchange I got to use the triangle attack multiple times. Sue got her time to level up during the ilia chapters anyway. I thought about replacing her with Igrene but Sue got the S Rank quicker in the end. Aside from that I used the christmas cavs as usual, Elen, Shanna and best boy Zeke (who was my main boss killer and carried a lot of the run on his shoulders). Fir outclassed Rutger very fast (he leveled p strength like 2 times as Lv.17/5 Swordmaster xD) so she not only joined but replaced him in the end - I couldn't use her as much as I wanted though. Sad that Clarine didn't got her Rutger Ending because of that but meh. In the end however I really felt in love with the prepromotes that you get in the end. Niime and Jodel with their high staff ranks, Perceval just blasting through the enemylines on the side of Allen and Lance as well as the almighty Milady who just carried the whole run on her back once she joined. I knew she was good but it's amazing how much she can do. In conclusion FE6 is still not a game that I like as much as FE7/8. But I'm far away from hating it now. The time I spent with it was fun overall. It showed me how I improved over the years. It took me like two and a half years to finally beat it. And, I never thought I would write this, but I'm looking forward to some of the units I want to use when I return to that game in the future. I don't know if I'll try out hardmode since I already had problems with the normal mode and I think it is a pretty good challenge on it's own. But the future holds a lot of things that you don't know about - I never thought that I would play the SNES games for example - or even Fire Emblem in general for example. Who knows what it holds.
FE6 is one of the only games in the series that makes its units feel as powerful as the story makes them out to be. Percival is the renowned Knight General of Etruria, and he feels like a god among men compared to the no-name recruits your army is filled with. Meanwhile, Wendy is a fresh recruit and Sophia is a non-combative recluse, and it makes sense that they struggle to get a foothold in combat. The only other games to do this well include FE4 (holy bloods, especially with holy weapons, shape the world around them) and, in some ways, Fates, where the royals are head and shoulders above the non-royal units (and even the untrained Sakura and Elise have insane potential). Meanwhile you have other FE games where great generals like Tauroneo or Basilikos or Lorenz (fe1) are supposedly incredibly strong, yet random teenagers wipe the floor with them with a little practice.
On the other hand, Cecilia is the Mage general but she's got nothing going for her that would justify that besides weapon ranks. She's mounted as well but riding a horse is not something that would make you Mage general. If she would've had hard mode bonuses she'd be much better I guess hm
I actually had a similar experience with FE6. I missed the true ending on my first playthrough cause I wasn't sure how to recruit Douglas at the time and I missed the Aureola tome. Got it on my second go around luckily. All around, FE6 is a solid experience and definitely one of the more difficult games of the series, but still a fun time in the end.
The argument Realism=Good is a pet peeve of mine. I don't care if something is realistic, I want to know why that thing is good. Your reasoning for each character being distinct because they're not all power houses is fine, regardless of how close that is to reality. Variety is neat and making bad characters work is fun.
While realism certainly doesn't simply = good, grounding a world in a healthy dose of reality can help people believe in the world and become more invested as a result. Obviously saying "this is good because it's realistic" isn't a good argument unless you support that with why that matters. In this case, I would say the realism he talked about would help with investment by helping people believe the characters are real people, increasing the investment in both the characters and, by proxy, the war those characters are in. At least, if realism is something that matters to you subjectively, but that applies to anything that can help, harm, or help and harm a piece of media.
@@gorade1901 I would say realism is more important story wise rather than in gameplay. I really don't think Fire Emblem gameplay is realistic, nor will it ever be. I think the "realism" Mangs is referring to the video is really just unit variety.
Ultimately I think it's a taste thing. It gets pretty obvious when it comes to games that go beyond themselves to be as realistic as possible, such as Red Dead Redemption 2. I completely agree that it doesn't make for a good argument as a result though, since it's not even close to an objective quality.
I remember hearing that the lead director for The Legend of Zelda would often tell his staff "Make it real, not realistic." Unless my memory is lying to me, I think what he was getting at is to make sure everything makes sense in the context of the world they're making. The weapon triangle would be a good example of that; even if the weapons don't have that relationship in the real world, it works in the context of Fire Emblem because the weapons operate within the weapon triangle for the games that have it.
Characters don't have to be equally viable, but I don't see a reason to completely gimp certain characters just to make others look better in comparison. There's NO reason why units like wolt, the armor knights, Dorothy, and oh god Sophia should have been as shitty as they are. You can have weaker characters, but i don't think they should be so over the top ass compared to the top tiers. You can make a good character look good without making other characters garbage. Conquest and awakening to a lesser extent did it better. They had good and bad characters of course, but there was no equivalent of wolt or sophia; the bad characters (odin, mozu, nyx, Donnell, virion, etc.) were still usable with decent effort as opposed to an extreme amount of effort with FE6 low tiers only for the character to still be mediocre at the end of the game.
I can't agree with you on character ballance issue's. I prefer fates /awakening where most if not all units are viable. In those games I can use the units I want without worrying "I wish this unit didn't suck". It's not as fun for me, where the new games, I can choose who I wan't to without such worries. and conquest is still a fun and hard game without the characters being bad. It gives more replayability where I can choose whoever I want to. in the 6th game, It's hard enough to grind units to usable stats, and thats not fun.
I mean, all units in FE6 are viable. you'll just have to work harder to use them. When I first played FE7 the first 3ish times, I always used Oswin, because without him, i didnt think i could beat the game (i turtled a lot). since then, ive beaten the game like 17 times, and have taken every single unit to the final chapter. even units like Will, Dart, Rebecca, Serra, Lowen, Matthew, Lucius, rath, Guy, Raven, Nino, Legault. Literally everyone. (i kept track because that was my goal) And I used the units from start to finish. As soon as they joined, I dropped whoever wouldn't be going, and used the new recruit instead. It takes skill, trial-and-error, and patience, but every unit IS viable. if you want the easiest time however, yes, you can use the best units only.
Happy birthday Binding Blade. I decided I had to put out a video talking about my favorite Fire Emblem game, though I got it out a little late (technically I suppose it’s still the 29th in America, so I guess I’m good?).
Anyway, here’s my 10 reasons for why I love Binding Blade. Enjoy!
Based on what you said about how you love world-building in books, I think you'd love Brandon Sanderson's books! That's his biggest focus in most of his books. The first series I recommend is Mistborn.
Hey mangs, where can I read supports in the new translation patch? Thanks, love the content!
Thanks for giving me this information because I have not really played older games
You’re born one day from the binding blade.... That, is destiny fulfilled.
Have to agree with the less than optimal units.
Honestly a game that gives us units like Wendy, to train them to become decent, and to see your efforts in action is a rather invigorating and fun experience.
Even a disappointing experience is an experience either way.
Mangs: Blames parents for not being born on the same day as his favourite FE game
Your mother just wanted to LTC the labour process.
“Chapter 7 is not only one of the hardest chapters in Binding Blade, but in the entire game”
Ah, yes, the floor here is made up of floor.
the archer class is really made up of archers
Just because you are correct doesn't mean you're right
Truth over facts.
The fact that the 7th fuckin chapter is one of the hardest in the game says a lot lmao
Not on normal mode ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Fun fact: Even Sakurai, the main developer behind Smash Bros, says that Roy is a bland protagonist. He said that he made the Smash Roy so mature and cool looking because that's the impression he got from him when they showed him the design but became disappointed when he played the game and realized he portrayed Roy wrong
He's not the most in depth lord of the series but I disagree that he's really that bland. The fault mostly lies in the games writing being extremely dependent on support conversations, meaning a lot just doesn't get seen in a regular playthrough.
Also considering a lot of people could die they mostly just didn't use characters that could in regular cutscenes(which I find dumb) so Roy's chances to show himself were very limited in the regular plot. Noone would be able to show himself well if all he talked to were Merlinus and Elffin. Even a great character like Hector wouldn't be able to.
So yeah, TLDR. Imo Roy not bad, fe6 Writing and relying on supports for character development bad
I'm trying to look into your claim but i'm not seeing Sakurai calling Roy bland, like Marth sure but not bland, do you have a source?
You're paraphrasing here, what he said is that Roy was not actually energetic. That doesn't automatically equal bland. Granted, that could very well be how he feels but afaik he's never said as much.
Wasn't the original plan to have Leif be the other Fire Emblem character along with Marth?
That's not at all what he said.
I agree with all of these points, especially the one about old Fire Emblems VS modern Fire Emblems in regards to differences in unit viability. I think it's so much more interesting to have a mixture of good and bad units because it makes the characters a lot more particular, and it also helps with replayability especially if you want to use a weaker unit for the challenge. Out of all the Fire Emblems, Binding Blade is easily one of the more replayable ones.
28:35 "i think i lost gale" you dont lose gale you kill him lol
I see that Tellius has some things that u like: a well written world, a journey and a war.
"Wolt is never going to be a good unit regardless"
That didn't age well kappa
Alright you sold me Mangs, now I can’t possibly pass the FE that shares the same birthday as me and a friend of mine...
Consider how quickly I fell in love with Jugdral after watching your rankings I’m pretty confident I won’t be disappointed with this one either.
Oh shoot, happy birthday!~ :D
Thank you! ❤️
Happy late birthday!
I wasn’t really actively watching this video, more like a podcast while I was working on something but you’ve got me interested in Binding Blade! You’ve made solid compelling points and this was a fun video to listen to. I haven’t played or even watched binding blade so I’m going into it blind but I’ll throw around any favorites and see how it turns out. I love Perceval in feh so he’ll definitely be part of my roster (a bonus since he sounds insane).
I Hope you like Binding Blade, and have Fun. :)
(And has luck in the RNG)
15:25
This didnt age well.
I love imperfect games that aren’t for everyone compared to games that try to be perfect and be for everyone.
Oh wow, what a coincidence. I'm about to start playing Binding Blade for the first time AND for my friends I'm going to do a Binding Dorcas stream on April Fools... Anyways, I do know a lot about the game despite not playing it, one of my favorite things about it besides the story is the soundtrack; Man does this game make you feel like you're in another world, it's truly something else.
Another thing is the story. Roy's a cool character to me because of his accomplishments, at 15 years old he's leading a goddamn army and takes on not only Zephiel, a dude who wields a lance-sword hybrid that spits out lightning and casually swings around this massive blade like it's nothing, but also centuries old and powerful dragons like Yahn and Idunn... My only real problem with the game is since it's gameplay is a bit dated thanks to it being the first FE GBA (least that's what I think it is, stuff like low hit rates and throne buffs and axes being so bad among other things...).
The title for the game alone is my favorite out of.. Well, might just be my favorite title for a FE game. Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn sound cool, but The Binding Blade just rolls right off the tongue... I know titles for a game don't matter much in the longrun, I'm just pointing out just how much Binding Blade is good. I can't wait to actually play the game and see for myself why both you and a lot of other people in the community like it so much!
Oh, and happy birthday Binding Blade, can't believe I forgot that out of that entire essay lmao
I share a birthday with Advance Wars
And Roy does a ton of interesting things in this story, I don't know why people say he's bland. The guy is fifteen and goes through a whole ass hero's journey and gains strength and notoriety throughout the campaign, and even leverages that later by tricking Etrurian Church into a huge no-win situation, by fighting under the banner of the Etrurian army with support from the prince. He's incredibly sly, moreso than probably any other lord in the entire franchise. Most of them are extremely, but Roy throughout chose to outmaneuver his opponents.
Glad to have met a fellow member of the "Come On Treck Is Not That Bad I Swear You Guys" Club.
25:44 “If you wanna build the very best army, you can use all the A+ Tier Characters.”
WRONG!
If you wanna build the very best army, you can TRUST NOBODY!
Having the units in Binding Blade be "extreme" in the sense, of the units being garbage in some fields, very good in another is a really fun mechanic imo. The units become just porridge if they are all equally good in all fields.
Let's take Barthe for example. Dude can't hit for shit, and he's not that much use in killing, but it sure is nice having him around late-game if trained enough, dude can take 2 Devil Axe Berserker crits to the face and still stand.
As a joke experience I only used bors on my fourth playthrough and it turned out to be really fun and entertaining, intill the final few chapters came up and were a pain to get through so I use Perceval to help myself get through the final chapters and beat the game
To me, FF6 gets exciting when I first get the preparation screen and can FINALLY bench the fucking fighters.
15:24 foreshadowing.
Great video! Now, let's see its two opposites:
10 Reasons I Love Revelations
10 Reasons I Dislike Binding Blade
Agree with you on the supports, except for the fact that later recruits have the same time required to build supports even though they're not available to use for very long.
Secret endings are cool, its just unfortunate that due to the structure of FE, they're not as easy to pull off. I think of Octopath traveler where the true ending is hidden behind a series of seemingly unrelated quests which happen throughout the game until the final one unlocks after you've beaten all the characters stories. That was well pulled off and extremely rewarding as it brought everything together.
In terms of unit balance, I definitely agree that not everyone should be equal. I don't mind the hit rate issues when using the normal good and decent units however I think that the weak hard to train units combined with the bad hit rates make some units a bit too weak. If some of the weaker units ended up slightly stronger it wouldn't be so bad.
As for the rest of the points, I really agree with you! Something about FE6's story really feels real and the whole world and setting always gets me excited. Even though its far from perfect, FE6 is definitely my favourite GBA FE
I love this game too, and it's the reason I found your channel. Happy belated king.
You've convinced me, after I finish Path of Radiance I'm playing Binding Blade good lookin out
Interesting thing to note on point #5--Cecilia (funny she's mentioned in this segment as well) says to Lilina in their support together, that she didn't teach Roy how to use magic or Lilina how to use a sword, because she knows that they aren't good at those things, that they should stick to their strong suits. Inequality in ability, both compared with others and within one's self, is reality, and it seems FE6 knows this.
Happy Birthday Binding Blade
WHOA! i just read Ingrene's support, and man you're right... That's powerful. And then when you read Astolfo's supports with Gwendolyn and Bors and how those add to their story... That's great character development! K, you have me convinced. I'm starting an FE6 play through in the morning, and I'm giving it a shot with all of them!
crazy timing lol i just started this game 3 days ago i didnt know the anniversary was coming up
I've played Binding Blade like 20 times, not even lying.
I really like it a lot even if it's clunky compared to later gbas. Hardest of the three, great music, and some of my favorite maps in the series.
I still love FE6, even though its the bane of my hacking existance.
WHY ARE THERE NO BLINKING FRAMES?
Yeah! Happy birthday FE 6! Happy birthday Mangs!
Interesting to say the least. I'm in between, I like characters & stories about the world.
Tbh, I can't wait for Mekkkah's Pitfalls Meme Review of this video.
Currently playing the game for the first time on a gba. I've lost pretty much every good unit in the early game so i hope the late game units can carry me through the rest. I am right now on chapter 12 useing mainly Lot, Marcus, Klein, Noah and Elffin. I gotta make the best of what i got now that i lost Rutger and Clarine
Binding Blade is now of age.
If a remake of Binding blade and Blazing blade is made for switch as a single game i will lose my marbles.
18 years? Time for a remake!
What patch is used in the background at 14:30 and beyond? It looks so much prettier.
It is called project ember, it is a rehaul of fe6 where everyone is useful and bows are broken
@@allanarcega323 are short bows 1-range? Otherwise it's not a true hack lmao
@@MerndZ they change it up instead of 1-2 range they hit you with the big brain 2-3 range also long bows are now ballistas
@@allanarcega323 4D chess
@@allanarcega323 That and some chapters carry certain twists and new characters being added
I actually didn’t know it was it’s birthday and I uploaded my first lp of the game on RUclips. I guess the stars just aligned
I surprised to hear about loving the massive battlefield and the sheer amount of units making it feel like you are fighting an actual army i had though you had your fill of that just from chapter 26 of path of radiance maniac mode Sanity Breaks
My birthday is today so I have the opposite situation of you mangs. Btw happy late birthday!
Saul w/o Supports: Womanizer who puts Job second
Saul w/ Supports: Guy who's REALLY into his faith, having even put a higher level of thought into it, but who's still held down by his sins (sloth and lust, in his case)
Noah w/o Supports: Level-headed guy; the tool you use to recruit Fir
Noah w/ Supports: The opposite of Treck; a man born in the wrong time, who cares too much for what his circumstances actually require, and who tries to hide that fact behind a grizzled shell
Treck w/o Supports: A doofus-looking schmuck who seems mentally absent
Treck w/ Supports: The opposite of Noah; a man who DOESN'T care about anything, other than wanting other people to do well, with ambiguity around what made him so at-peace with his situation to be asleep in the middle of battle
Roy w/o Supports: A kid doing his duty, nothing more, though with certain select cares that might shine through for some people
Roy w/ Supports: A kid well-aware of his own deficiencies, mortified of screwing up in a manner that would have his sworn men and friends killed, who ultimately finds happiness with Lilina IF YOU DON'T EFFING SCREW IT UP
Binding Blade supports are extremely underrated. I can’t blame anyone though because I only saw most of them on youtube.
Binding Blade was my first GBA Fire Emblem, and it was a kick in the balls. Had I researched, I might well have been convinced to play Blazing Blade or Sacred Stones first instead of playing them in chronological order. I really do enjoy it, and it has a strong older feeling, and one of being the bridge between what Kaga made and what he was leaving behind. Also, good boy Geese is not forgettable and I think you meant Zeiss because Gale living or dying has no affect on reaching 21x.
I do have things that I would have liked to have had implemented to improve it however:
1 Scale down some of the early game difficulty
2 Remove ambush reinforcements
3 Inability to use items at the base
Binding Blade is probably one of my top 5 Fire Emblem games but I feel like the only points I can really agree with are #4 and part of #7. Points #1-3 and #8 are just personal preference. The problem with #10 is that I think from a story perspective the true ending is more like a normal ending with the shorter one being a bad end.
And in regards to your points about the characters my main problem is precisely that the game has a huge roster with a lot of units being bad and the supports growing as slowly as they do. On my first playthrough I unlocked about 6-8 supports, I didn't have any idea that Igrene and Astore have a support and so forth. This is even worse with bad characters since almost all of a unit's character is locked behind grinding supports but there's no real incentive to use them if you don't like their design. Base conversations would really help with this kind of thing since you can get a glimpse of character even from people you are not using.
If you're willing to play through the game a bunch of times for the sole reason of using different characters to see their supports it might get better but from a first impression standpoint I don't think the game really succeeds on that front. I have no idea if there is any difference in personality between Alan and Lance for example and I don't even remember which is which. They're people you start the game with, I took both of them to the endgame and I still remember nothing distinct about their characters. For reference I can easily distinguish personality and design between Kent and Sain or Kyle and Forde.
Also the map design in gaiden chapters was a mistake.
I never get why Mangs always mentions Percival as the big broken prepromote and not Miledy. She is easily the most broken unit in FE6 with dummy high bases and growths making her snowball so quickly that she can just fly across the map and destroy hordes of enemies while Percival is still stuck in a forest. Like the chapter where you get Percival, Miledy can just fly over the mountain and destroy the boss and beat that map on the same turn you even manage to recruit Percival lol. But besides from my petty comment I'd say that FE6 is my favourite game in the series to replay just because I find it so fun to play. The story and characters are both very meh imo, not bad just kind of bland overall though there are some gems in there (along with some stinkers). I agree that FE6 world building is pretty good, I just don't think that its used that well in conjunction with the characters (I'd say Tellius does a much better job of integrating the world building into the characters). Wouldn't say its my overall favourite game in the series due to its meh story but definitely the game I always want to replay the most just because its so goddamn addicting to play.
This video's awesome, Id love to see more videos like these
There's only two things I don't like about Binding Blade.
1. This games hates axes.
2. It seems like there are a lot of early game bosses that are Berserkers that can kill you with BS criticals.
Other than those two things, great game.
Binding Blade doesn't hate axes, if anything, it probably has the best balance around them. Almost every game since FE7 has been dominated by axes.
FE7 - Axes are the best combat option by far because most of the enemies are Lance users and Hand Axes are way too accurate.
FE8 - Lances are the best, only due to the fact that all of the best classes to use, Paladin/Wyvern Knight, don't have access to axes.
FE9 - Axes rule, next best weapon type doesn't even compare.
FE10 - Axes rule, next best weapon type doesn't even compare.
FE11 - Forging/Ballisticians.
FE12 - Doesn't really have one particular weapon type that destroys the entire game.
FE13 - Axes/Magic.
FE14 - Axes rule because Lance/Hidden weapons are the most common enemy weapon, wyverns are the best class.
FE15 - Bows because forging.
FE16 - Axes/Bows.
Steel lances had 55 hit in FE6, Hand axes and javelins 50
Still doing my first playthrough of FE7, trying to play as many FE games as I can. I also manged to get a copy of Sacred Stones, would you recommend I play Binding blade or Sacred Stones next?
FE 6 is definitely one of the best games in the series, I full heartily agree that the large cast of mediocre units is so much more fun then a smaller cast of overpowered ones. Bad units are fun to use and that is a fact, while rescue dropping and warp skipping maps is fun, I feel there is as much if not more fun in struggling to match the power of an enemy. For instance when I first played Arcadia for the first time and I saw a manakete just randomly in the fog, I was so much more proud of myself for beating that single enemy then when 90% of my army can solo an entire map like in FE 8. There also is a special charm in the way the characters are designed, while there are very similar units like the 4 cavs they are all unique in there own way, such as Alan and Lance both join chapter 1, but Lance is faster and Alan is strong and then Noah and Treck join chapter 7 and their higher weapon ranks make them a bit more unique with Noah very close to promotion if somehow the Christmas cavs aren’t there yet, and Treck just being fun to use in my opinion because of how mediocre he is
I don't think it's fair to matter of factly state that using bad units is "fun" though, especially when they're binding blade bad. Bad units can certaintly be fun to use, as is the case with Donnell, mozu, nino, est, etc. The difference between those bad units, and binding blade bad units is that there's an objective feeling of success after training these units due to the fact they're carried by their high growths. Binding blade bottom tiers like Wendy, bors, wolt and especially Sophia on the other hand don't carry anywhere near the same pay off for your struggle raising them as nino, mozu and Donnell do.
I felt like binding blade went too far introducing a power gap between units, as certain characters were needlessly made awful just to make others look better on comparison, whereas awakening in my opinion went about it more organically by making the whole cast usable, while making a lot of units better than others (robin > ricken and miriel, Frederick > sully and stahl, etc). A whole cast of usable units allows for a lot more diversity in player choice, which is a huge plus.
Where's the best place to get the english rom for this?
I'll always disagree on your point to unit balance, bases/how much unit can contribute on join is enough for me to distinguish them. I'd hate if most people were just destined to be mediocre no matter how much I try to bias for them. And following Three Houses discussion from pre release to now, there was a lot we didn't know and a lot of new information that really rocked what we thought of a lot of characters, the doubling arts the glorious rise of Bernadetta from Rengor's 0% run. The power levels still wary wildly, playing AM you're going to have Ingrid strugging to go into double digits damage, when at the same time you can recruit Catherine who's going to quad and 2HKO anyone. Why is it that the possibility of weaklings rising to glory devalues these titans to you? No matter how much you meme, the titans will always be stronger.
3H is a bit of an anomaly and one I should probably have mentioned as an exception, since there are so many other variables that dictate character viability aside from just bases and growths. When I talk about the “everyone is good” syndrome, I am mostly referencing Awakening & Fates, which are notorious for having great overall growths for most units (with a few exceptions). In these two games, the good units feel less special to me, since almost anyone can become good with enough investment.
In games like Binding Blade, there’s a clear power disparity between units, and as a result, the units who are good seem a lot more special since they are surrounded by a lot of average units. I’m not saying that buffing all the weaklings would make the titans less viable, but it would make them seem less special.
Rutger for example, is a unit that stands out because he is one of the only characters on your team for quite a while that can one-round enemies by himself. If you had multiple other characters capable of pulling this off in the early game, it would make Rutger feel less special.
To quote the Incredibles: “When everyone is special no one is”
@@Mangs1337 Fates (or at least CQ) growths doesn't make anyone trivialize the game by the long shot, it's nothing like Awakening letting you feed 10 levels to anyone make them rout maps by standing in place with a javelin, they don't even make them compare to the royals. What they do is give everyone competent enough stats to survive and/or contribute in a certain way in their join maps and a few afterwards. Odin can Nostank, Niles can ORKO mages/fliers, Effie is close to OHKOing frail people etc. I fail to see how a full party of people with thought put into their gameplay design is worse than a bunch of unfun to use scrubs that make a guy buffed by a glitch look better. How is it more realistic for an army to keep around a bunch of people that are borderline incapable of combat as opposed to an army that keeps around a bunch of people at the very least capable of doing a specific thing? Is it really that much a problem for you that you can give Arthur a pair up, bunch of tonics and a meal to ORKO a specific enemy type in one chapter?
I'm still exaggerating, most of the cast isn't even that good, Mozu, Peri, Charlotte (as a unit and not a backpack), many of the kids never feel worth using, but even with all them included, CQ has a much smaller cast, but would giving you 15 extra Wolts spread around early game actually make people feel more special?
Hey Mangs great video, I agree that FE 6 is pretty underrated. here's what I think about your points.
1. I think the worldbuilding in FE 6 isn't really that great, its just better than a lot of the other Fire Emblem games where countries have no culture and they are all basically monarchies. The countries of FE 6 honestly feel just like the characters: they have cooky cutter personalities (Bern-meritocratic military empire, Etruria-country of refined nobles and high inequality, Ilia-economically depressed tundra where everyone tills soil or becomes a mercenary) but at least they have a personality. They feel like they have a culture more than the nations of say fe 8, and in fe 9 it felt like each country was defined more by its race and monarch than by its culture and history.
2-3. These are good points as well, although I'll add that FE 6 does war better because it feels like an ENTIRE CONTINENT of multiple countries has been engulfed in war. In FE 9 Dain poses a threat to Gallia sure but the entire war was really just Dain vs Crimea and it felt like Dain conquered Crimea in the beginning and then kinda just waited and did nothing for most of the game. In FE 8 grado gets taken out half way thru, in FE 10 all the conflicts are super contrived so they lose weight, in FE 13 its really just ylissse versus Plagia, and then valm, and then grima's underlings, and FE 14 was just Nohr vs Hoshido. FE 6's Bern felt like a real threat and their characteristic wyvern knights were always some of your strongest opponents so coming to fight a huge hoard of wyvern lords in Bern feels really epic.
4. I also enjoy hard mode. I like how even in later chapters a lot of units struggle to one round. The enemies in games where every single unit one rounds and survives multiple attacks feel super weak causing the villains to not feel threatening, and FE 6 successfully avoids that.
5. I strongly disagree with the notion that having garbage characters who you can poor incredible amounts of resources into and still turn out mediocre is a good thing. For example, Fates maintains power inequality while still making every unit usable. In conquest, Xander, Camilla, and Corrin are gods while units like Odin could get insane levels of investment and would still struggle to compare. To argue that Hana and Ryoma are just as good would be insane. Sometimes it sounds like u complain that modern FE's don't have unusable units and I'm still not convinced that's a bad thing. Also, the closer units are in power the MORE discussion people have because the more debatable the unit's placing on a tier list becomes. And there are still a lot of units that are underrated like Cecilia. A lot of people underrated Jakob (female corrin) in conquest before they realized his potential through reclassing and many people still don't understand that Saizo is a god in birthright. I also think its more realistic and more fun to have investment be what determines which units become the best in a playthrough. In real medieval combat which soldiers were better trained and had better armor and weapons and cooperated the best played a larger role than simply a couple individual soldiers being Gods on the battlefield
6. Supports in FE 6 are super hit and miss, I agree with your points and love concise but meaningful conversations but I think the whole support system in gba is bad. Midbattle supports and forcing characters to end their turn next to each other is way worse than the path of radiance and awakening/fates system
7. Also good point Fe 6 has some really good maps but it becomes a mixed bag because of every single map having the same objective and the roughly equal number of garbage maps.
8. This is a good point as well I love how quickly the army grows in FE 6 I don't how a lot of FE's make u start out with a 1-3 unit prologue and by chapter 7 u still only have like 8-12 units. When the roster grows to slowly it makes it feel like you still haven't hit the "real" game yet and like your still part of some sort of beginner area
9. I disagree with this point as well I think having a small-medium roster makes it so that each unit likely has a niche that makes them different but a giant roster means some units are simply better in every conceivable way then other units making everyone less unique.
10. Secret Ending- good points, nothing to add
11. Personally one of my favorite aspects about FE 6 is how it way more player phased focused than enemy phase focused, which makes the game a lot more strategic and like I the player am doing most of the work instead of just waiting in enemy ranges and watching a massacre occur.
All hail the objectively best Fire Emblem! Definitely no bias here
if i didnt know supports were a thing i honestly would've never known they were in the game. i played it and didnt get anything lol
i just got to the part where you said chapter 11b was one of the best chapters and i spent hours ranting about how it was terrible design LOL
I’m older than binding blade but I only released in Europe
Makes me wonder when we'll get a FE6 remastered let's play
We did it boys, Binding blade is legal now.
Unzips pants
Fap time
Now if only it was local...ized
That didn't stop it from royally fucking me up
Binding blade is the best game ever
1:59 #1: Roy’s Story is focused on the Continent, World Politics, Weapons
5:31 #2: The Game feels like a Journey
7:12 #3 Nation At War
8:48 #4 Hard Mode, challenging but beatable, and fun
11:44 #5 Some Units Are Sorta Bad
17:34 #6 Supports
20:40 #7 Map Design, Some Maps are Spectacular
22:22 #8 A small army grows quickly
24:05 #9 A HUGE Roster
26:43 #10 The True Ending is Fufilling
Thanks
This isn't necessary anymore but back then this was helpful. Thanks
I misread the title as "blinding bald" and was terribly intrigued at the prospect of seeing a little more details on the hack
You get a like for that.
“Wolt will never be a good unit”
This did not age well Mangs
@Donnie Cates his Wolt killed Zephiel in an Ironman hard mode FE6 run.
I ended up playing binding blade recently with a group of friends and found myself enjoying it way more than I did on my first playthrough.
I resonate with the feeling that you have if you bring one of the scrub lord units in the beginning across the whole game. I ended up using fucking Bors of all people and not only did he have a surprising amount of dialogue I didn’t know existed, but he ended up being really fucking good and I watched this nerd turn into a monster who couldn’t die and had 15 move by the end of the game lmao.
But if you close your eyes *bors turns into a paladin* feels like nothing change at all
This is how I felt with a 14 move Gonzalez in my (recent) first playthrough
Same but with wendy and dorothy. They were literally the strongest units I had other than lillina
I love the Gaiden chapters needing certain requirements and the secret ending stuff too Paralogues in the modern games just dont have the same feel to them for some reason
Today everything has to be showed in front of you to not risk to scare the player away. I don't wanna spoiler three houses but there is one thing on a certain route that was originally hidden a lot harder then in the final product. And I have to say that I was often frustrated when I wanted to obtain the true ending but I sticked playing the game to get it. And I earned the true ending as my reward. And it was so satisfying.
So when can I expect a sped up version by Mekkah?
Every time mangs says epic
FE6 makes Swordmasters and Snipers decent. They have their actual uses unlike many other FE games, so I like it :D
Swordmasters were too good in fe6 though. +30 crit is insane for example. Also... Fe6 being that dodgy helps them a LOT. Snipers are also useful yeah, but mostly just bc of that 3× effectiveness
by snipers you only mean igrene cuz wolt and dorothy are garbage
@@piojoaquinlopez8881 The only problem with the archers is actually getting them to snipers. On average theyre not bad after that. They have reliable 2 range in a game where javies and hand axes have crap hit.
Chapter 7 and 8 have great uses for archers.
Sure, theyre not great units. But never said they were. They are DECENT.
I usually ditch them for a nomad at the WI, cuz the mount is too good, but the amount of scary fliers in the game make effective damage against them useful.
@@Timmio. 3x effectiveness is sooo good. Helps that theres plenty of fliers for them to either shoot down alone or take off most of the HP from.
And yeah...swordmasters are so nice.
I like the change of pace with them in my army and actually contributing.
@@piojoaquinlopez8881 Igrene and Klain I'd say
Happy Birthday Binding Blade lets hope the possible future remake makes Roy good
I'm glad you acknowledged the scale that comes with facing Bern, it's one of the reasons why I think the villains of FE6 are the best in the series as they feel like the most threatening through gameplay
If you're really into world building, you absolutely have to play Xenoblade definitive edition when it comes out. The game has some really incredible lore, as well as some great characters
Xenoblade is a franchise I've always wanted to get into, but when I played XC2, I didn't like the automatic battle system. It just feels like I'm watching a battle take place as I wait for the specials to recharge. It's a shame because everything else about the game was fantastic...
I want to give it a second chance once DE comes out, but just so I know, is the battle system the same or is it more "immersive" than 2?
@@BeeLy1011 It's similar in many respects. As a huge fan of Xenoblade 1 myself, even I admit that the core combat is not quite on par with the incredible music and world. But it has merits that are not present in XC2, primarily the vision mechanic.
Not too far into the game, Shulk gets visions of major incoming attacks, and it's up to you to determine how you respond to them. Perhaps you use a Monado Art to block the attack, or perhaps you tell your healer to heal the party to absorb the blow, or perhaps you try to redirect the enemy's aggro, or stun the enemy, or use a chain attack or just KO the enemy, or... you get the idea.
Additionally, most Arts have timer-based cool downs rather than requiring auto-attacks to hit. Plus each character has way more than 4 arts accessible per battle. The very early game combat is still rather slow, but things pick up significantly by the time the 4th character joins the party.
Overall, I'd say XC2 has more variety in party building and more ways to optimize damage output, but XC1 lets you interact with enemies more, primarily through the vision mechanic.
@@Malhonn yeah, I feel like if Mangs tried the first 3 hours or so he would fall in love with it like I and so many others have
@@Malhonn that's super true, same for me. The production value in the cutscenes was pretty insane considering how underpowered the system was
@@BeeLy1011 2 gets good after chapter 3
“You can try to give Wolt a lot of kills but Wolt is never going to be a good unit” *Laughs in dead Zephiel*
Oh yeah xD
Yes cavalier 76 miss
Yes bandit 47 hit
Now thats why i love fe 6
I like raging
#11 The story also happens DURING the missions. You witness important events while playing the game rather than experiencing gameplay and story separately. This greatly improves the pacing and adds to the storytelling.
FE4 does this too!
If you really like stories with lots of lore, you'll love the Trails series, they have great world building.
Whoa, a Falcom fan, you won't see them often :o
I love the Trails series for what it's done, but the Ys series have a more special spot in my heart tbh
Falcom is love, Falcom is life
Funny, I was just gonna mention Trails too for its world building!
ikr, its world building is fantastic!
That first point is really interesting. I've always held the opposite to be true: If you have good, established, developed characters, the world doesn't need to be that interesting. That point also builds on something Mangs said forever ago that stuck in my mind for some reason about Fates, that you never get a feel for the world, what it looks like, where you are. The map annoyed Mangs, which was something I just never noticed but couldn't un-see after he pointed it out. The fact that that in particular annoyed him makes more sense in light of this.
Both are true, if only for different people.But having only one will no doubt put one of those group of people off, while very good stories can have the cake and eat it too(like the big succesful shonen ).Or alternatively those stories are set in our world, in that case they only have to focus on the characters and their actions, and eventually the fantaisy element they add(for example persona)
Imagine baby egg being like: NO, i have to stay just one day more, ONE DAY!!!
Iol this reminds me of my father. I was born like a week before his birthday but he wanted my mom to hold me for a week so we shared birthdays. A bit messed up, specially because my lil half bro was closer to his birthday than me
ONE MORE TURN!
I wish I could like, but... *nice*
Not as unlikely as might sound, I took an entire day to leave the hatch. Mangs should've been more stubborn back then and delayed his own birth.
Bloodthirsty Mango: "I like it when there's a war"
Sain is better 👀
@@lillrice27 He's my buddy!
@@lillrice27 Kent has balanced growths while Sain has growths that lean towards strength.
This was my second fire emblem game after the blazing sword and I fell in love with this game.
The character supports kept me entertained and the story is really good.
I find characters like hugh, lugh, chad, rutger, and clarine to be some of my favorite in the series and I'm just mentioning a few.
Zepheiel is a great antagonist and he connects blazing sword to binding blade in my opinion.
The level design is also good and the hard mode is difficult just the way I like it.
I wish it had paired endings but even without that I love this game and I think it is a solid entry in the series.
Sacred stones is my favorite but this one will always be second place to me.
I see your a man of culture as well 👍👍
There should be a game called fire emblem blinding bald oh wait!
This video released at a really interesing time, I actually just finished the game for the first time a few hours ago! My initial thoughts are that while it's not my favorite, it was still an enjoyable experience. I think I'll come back to play hard mode eventually, but other games in the series are more intriguing at the moment. I respond to your points one-by-one (sorry in advance for incoming essay):
World, Not Characters: I think the world building for FE6 is pretty solid, especially considering the technical limitations at the time. I like when the narritive gives context to each battle, and why people are fighting. When you get past the early-game bandits, I think FE6 executes that context fairly well. Also, every location does feel pretty distinct from other places.
The Game is a Journey: I do agree here, this game really does feel like a grand, epic journey across a continent, and I think it does that due to each location feeling distinct, as mentioned before.
War, Not a Skirmish: I think it does feel like a war, but only after the Western Isles is finished. Only when Bern throws the red hell that are wyverns at you does it feel like an important conflict.
Hard's Rough, Not Unfair: Can't comment here, first playthrough was Normal
Unit Power Inequality: I completely agree that inequality between units is a good thing, although I think the gap between best and worst units in FE6 is a bit excessive. Although my favorite FE gameplay wise is Radiant Dawn, so maybe I'm talking out my ass here. Using a bad unit like one of the armors is what can make a playthrough more interesting, and can lead to a more memorable experience. I'll at least say for certain that inequality makes things more interesting, at least when replaying a game
Supports: Short and Sweet: Much like you Mangs, the only chain I finished is Roy and Lilina's. Not much I can say here about the supports themselves, although I will say the way you acquire supports is just plain dumb.
Certain S Tier Maps: Like you mentioned, there are some bad one's that are particularly annoying. Although I will say that throughout the game I was never bored at map being to simple or easy, so I'd say FE6 is good at keeping you engaged.
A Quickly Staffed Army: I must applaud this game for hitting the happy medium of having a lot of options early game, while not overwhelming the player. The degree of choice the game gives you is actually really cool.
Two Million Characters: I think a roster of any amount is fine, as long as characters don't become nameless, faceless generics. I don't think Binding Blade does this, so it's giant roster is fine-by-me.
Secret, Satisfying Ending: I'm fine with a super-duper-secret ending, but with Binding Blade's execution there are some caveats. For context, I did look up on serenes how to get all the gaiden chapters, so I did get the "true" end. The ending itself is fine, I think it's a nice and suitable wrap-up, but the fact you have to get them through chapters you might not know about is dumb. If the game expessly stated when and how you unlock gaiden chapters, I'd like gaiden chapters - and a hidden ending - a lot more.
Overall, I had a lot of fun! Some frustrating bits too (looking at you 20B) but it's all part of the FE experience. I definitely think it has flaws, but I can understand why others love it. If I had to rate it, I'd give it a 7/10. (Oh, and if anyone sees this: thanks for reading my thoughts. It's nice to have your opinions' heard)
Rewatching this after I finally played through it and got the true ending, and all I can say is, this is all stuff I agree with. HOWEVER, my one big problem with it is how it can knock the wind out of you, especially with the ambush spawns, and it seems to promote looking up a guide. Where in chapter 21(the one where you battle Murdock, if I am wrong forgive me), where to the South of the beginning area is an area that can spawn about 5 paladins and 3 dracoknights, even on easy mode, and while I enjoyed the challenge, the way it promoted looking up the spawns unless you wanted to be overwhelmed really soured my taste for that chapter. Also, I should mention that I was trying to get the true ending, by looking up the requirements only, which may have resulted in me having a bigger challenge, but I still had fun for the most part.
"it's not unfair" - yeah right
Enemies hit you with approx. 30 Hit.
Yet you have to miss even with 90 Hit.
Every FE game that uses 2 RN operates on that logic. The only reason it appears worse in FE6 than others games, is because getting hit by a low displayed hit or missing with a high displayed hit, actually has consequences due to the higher quality enemies. Missing a 90 in FE7 or FE8 doesn't matter much in most situations, because the enemies pose such an insignificant threat to the good units like Marcus, Seth, Lowen and Franz, that rarely does that miss ever lead to someone actually being lost.
Mangs: BB is old enough to drink in some countries
US: *confused heavy breathing*
"wolt is never going to be a good unit" meanwhile in Mang's current ironman of fe6...
“Play perfectly every time.”
*Ironman Flashbacks*
As a FE6 fanboy I'm glad to see this in my sub box
Part of the reason I love character power level being so varied is that I like using bad units. There are plenty of fun bad units in FE6 that I've gotten great memories of solely because they got rng blessed or were more useful than expected. That's just part of the fun of playing FE in my opinion.
How ironic considering the Feh trailer that just came out
0:23 Think of it this way: Now you have a reason to party for 2 days straight.
Your point about RD having large cast but you don't play with all of them is WRONG. Because the way the game splits the cast into different routes, you DO play with many of them. That's the whole point. If you got large cast all at the same time, it's where you are having trouble to making use of them all because of limited units you can bring into battles. RD circumvented this and letting you play with many of the units since they all appear in different battles for large chunk of the game.
He didn't say you don't play with all of them. Just not together which ties into him liking fielding big armies.
15:26 *FE6 Ironman Season 2 says otherwise*
“The *three* main lords”
*”Eliwood and Hector”*
Anyways, I find myself agreeing with....every point. Everything you said, is something I enjoy from Fire Emblem. And...funnily enough...most of those can be applied to Shadow Dragon. Anyways, this inspires me to actually go finish Binding Blade for once. Nice Video.
H\e did say “eliwood lyn and hector” though.
@@Malhonn Bro how could you forget Merlinus, the third lord?
Curtis MY, nO hE dIdN’t
Lyn doesn't matter to the plot
1: The story focuses on the World, not the Characters
I suppose that's technically true in Shadow Dragon, only because the focus on characters is almost nonexistent, but I would never say the world of Archenea, as shown in Shadow Dragon alone, is all that fleshed out. Hell, I'd say Camus is about as/more fleshed out than any piece of worldbuilding I saw in Shadow Dragon. The game just doesn't focus much on story, period, neither the world nor the characters get much time to be at all interesting outside of Caeda, Tiki, and the Camuu/Nina situation. It rarely ever tells you more than the bare minimum of what it needs to establish. The houses are a little funny though, I guess.
2: The game feels like a Journey
I'll give it that much, it's certainly a journey. I would argue not a fun one, but that's not what I'm getting at here.
3: It feels like a War, not a Skirmish
Yup, I'll give it that too, you certainly fight a lot of dudes and get a lot of dudes. I would argue that the war doesn't have any tangible steaks, after all, if neither characters nor the world get the time to be developes, what's at steak, as far as the player is concerned, if they lose? The only answer I can come up with is your pacience.
4: Difficulty is a challenge, without being unfair
I am absolutely possitive this is not one of the points you thought applied to Shadow Dragon, and if it is, Hard 5 would like to have a word with you.
5: Not all units are balanced, some are better than others
Yeah, but in Shadow Dragon, that's more of a weakness than a strength. In FE6, there is actually a point to using the less good units, they have chapters where they can be useful, because the game actually does a good job of spreading these units out to the point where they even get that opportunity. Shadow Dragon actively does the opposite at every chance it can get, with the best example being Chapter 2, giving you Bord, Cord, and Darros if you recruit him, on the exact same chapter as Barst, who is the exact same unit, but just better. The only one with a slight edge over Barst is Bord, and that difference simply isn't tangible.The only reason you would ever use them is if you're meming or if Barst died on an Iron Man run. They do not have a chance to shine, even with reclassing, and because they are absolutely nothing except "Barst but worse", there is absolutely nothing interesting about using them regardless. In FE6, units have enough character to make them interesting enough to use even when bad. It also doesn't leave room for much discussion, because what's there to say about units that are objectively worse the moment they show up other then "check out my meme build", and there's also very little "finding out which units are good or bad" because whether they're worse is almost always immediately obvious. I guess it does add realism still, just not any interesting realism, but still realism, so I'll give it that.
6: Supports
They don't exist, so surely this isn't one of the points you meant. Moving on.
7: The game has extremely Good Maps
...yeah, no, I'm pretty sure even fans of Shadow Dragon agree that it's map design is piss poor. They all range from either boringly passable with a little bit of walking simulator mixed in to downright awful (ballistician map).
8: You get a lot of Characters Right Away
Yes, this is true, but his points as to why this is a good thing don't really apply to Shadow Dragon. It doesn't matter if you can pick out a roster early if there's nothing there that's interesting about picking out a roster. In order for that to be a plus, the characters actually have to have something about them that makes them interesting enough to pick. Shadow Dragon doesn't really have this unless you're meming, so you'll probably just pick the best units regardless.
9: The game has a Huge Roster
Yes, this is true. I'd point out why this isn't really a plus for Shadow Dragon, but not only did I kinda already do that, the egg did it for me. It doesn't matter how large the roster is if the roster is so generic that the choice between units doesn't matter.
10: Secret Ending
Shadow Dragon doesn't have one, so clearly you didn't mean this one. Moving on.
So, out of all 10 points made in this video, 6 of them *technically* apply to Shadow Dragon, but only 2 end up being a substantial plus (the game feeling like a journey and the game feeling like a war and not a skirmish). Of the other 4 that technically apply to Shadow Dragon but aren't a substantial plus, most of it comes down to the big roster just not mattering at all and the story just not being focused on very much in both worldbuilding and characters. In terms of Worldbuilding, the only substantial thing we get is the history involving dragons and how it resolved, which FE6 did way better, and as far as characters go, we got Camuu/Nina (both of their substantial character things happen because of each other), Tiki/Nagi cause they're the same character at different points, and Caeda, who is the one character consistently interesting throughout, even if only interesting in comparison to every thing else, which I don't feel like I need to mention that FE6 dwarfs it in characters too. Really, FE6 just feels like everything Shadow Dragon wanted to be. Every plus that can be applied to Shadow Dragon, as far as this video goes, FE6 does significantly better.
Sorry if this seems overly aggressive, I'm just a very thourough person who really wished Shadow Dragon was a better game, so when people compare these two games, I feel the need to point these things out. I did this for discussion purposes, not to just try to shut down what you said.
I think Binding Blade is a good game but...it not great in my opinion like the units in Binding Blade are either gods, meh or just trash...which is a problem in my opinion also the cast is...way too much like holy shit. I mean units can be balanced by having some unique....for example, Berwick Saga showed us how units can have their own unique skills or have something unique to help them stand out like for example the main lord of the game Reese whos bases aren't that good and in Berwick Saga growth rates are low but even so, he can still fight pretty well and his Commander skill is super helpful (alongside spoilers but...I won't get to that) as hits rates are low as hell. Another example is Marcel and Derrick (or 150) both of them aren't great in fact they are pretty low on the tier list heck Derrick is meme tier in that game but he is still usable unlike in Binding Blade where some units are trash as hell best example Wendy and Spohia...they both suck.
In fact, that reminds me...Mangs you would love Berwick Saga as it has a good story and world-building heck I would call it Kaga masterpiece. So please...play it!
You can try giving wolt kills but he will not end up good because of that
Yes that statement aged well
Playing Binding Blade now, one thing that really puts me off loving the game (it feels great and could be my favourite) is the accuracy problems. I played SS -> Blazing -> Binding as a newcomer (also PoR, 3H, and Awakening in between), and the accuracy is so low compared to everything else I’ve played that it makes it really frustrating to play. Sometimes I do need to abuse save states to beat a boss, which I’m not proud to admit. Also, the enemy spam, especially in the Sacae route I accidentally stumbled into, makes the maps very tiring to play. I can’t sit down for 2 hours and clear two, three chapters like I can for other games where the maps energise instead of tire me (Fe7 also suffers from the same problem, but much later into the game). I’m not done with the game due to burnout, but I hope to finish it soon.
Gonna do a hard mode playthrough where I fore myself to field all of my armor knights/generals every map.
To be honest binding blade is my favorite and first game of fire emblem I have every played. I love it for all your reasons and more.
ROYS OUR BOI
ROYS OUR BOI
ROYS OUR BOI
So I was able to finish Binding Blade today (finally). It was a long ride for me and man these journey through Roys Game... what a journey it was. I evolved a special relationship to this game honestly. Started it when I was doing last projects for school whenever I took a longer break at the evening and it started out pretty cool. I really liked it at first glance but my biggest mistake was probably to spoiler me too much. I was obviously aiming to get the true ending but got some trouble on the way. Units that I need to gain certain gaiden chapters died long after I wrote over the save files where that happened and such stuff. So I restarted a few times and eventually a lot of small things started to annoy me (like the not so great RNG for example). I would've gone so far to say that it's the only FE that I really hate. In the end however I began to form a bond with this game. Especially when the Ilia/Sace-Route Split begins and your group is mainly promoted it gets really fun. And I'm glad I started over one last time. Gathering all the stuff I need and two turned Idunn in the end. The game wasn't able to beat me that easily - and it was really satisfying once I've done it. And the cutscene at the end was so cute. Worth it. Elibe has a lot more lore and story going on then I thought. And the story of Idunn and Zephiel is very touching too. I'm a bit sad that I couldn't use Treck since he died always dunno why. It was like a curse or something. Next time I will probably try to raise Sophia just for the lolz. Once I met Niime I wondered what the hell they we're thinking while designing Sophias Base Stats. It was fun to raise her weapon rank to S and she could do some apocalyptic things to the manaketes in the final chapters. Marcus died as well so I used Jerrot a lot and later on Juno as well. I got their A Support and enjoyed every line I read. They're a cute family. It was also only my final run where I used Thea and I'm glad there as well. Sadly that meant I had less screentime for Sue but in exchange I got to use the triangle attack multiple times. Sue got her time to level up during the ilia chapters anyway. I thought about replacing her with Igrene but Sue got the S Rank quicker in the end. Aside from that I used the christmas cavs as usual, Elen, Shanna and best boy Zeke (who was my main boss killer and carried a lot of the run on his shoulders). Fir outclassed Rutger very fast (he leveled p strength like 2 times as Lv.17/5 Swordmaster xD) so she not only joined but replaced him in the end - I couldn't use her as much as I wanted though. Sad that Clarine didn't got her Rutger Ending because of that but meh. In the end however I really felt in love with the prepromotes that you get in the end. Niime and Jodel with their high staff ranks, Perceval just blasting through the enemylines on the side of Allen and Lance as well as the almighty Milady who just carried the whole run on her back once she joined. I knew she was good but it's amazing how much she can do.
In conclusion FE6 is still not a game that I like as much as FE7/8. But I'm far away from hating it now. The time I spent with it was fun overall. It showed me how I improved over the years. It took me like two and a half years to finally beat it. And, I never thought I would write this, but I'm looking forward to some of the units I want to use when I return to that game in the future. I don't know if I'll try out hardmode since I already had problems with the normal mode and I think it is a pretty good challenge on it's own. But the future holds a lot of things that you don't know about - I never thought that I would play the SNES games for example - or even Fire Emblem in general for example. Who knows what it holds.
Mangs's waifu is now legal in America.
FE6 is one of the only games in the series that makes its units feel as powerful as the story makes them out to be. Percival is the renowned Knight General of Etruria, and he feels like a god among men compared to the no-name recruits your army is filled with. Meanwhile, Wendy is a fresh recruit and Sophia is a non-combative recluse, and it makes sense that they struggle to get a foothold in combat.
The only other games to do this well include FE4 (holy bloods, especially with holy weapons, shape the world around them) and, in some ways, Fates, where the royals are head and shoulders above the non-royal units (and even the untrained Sakura and Elise have insane potential).
Meanwhile you have other FE games where great generals like Tauroneo or Basilikos or Lorenz (fe1) are supposedly incredibly strong, yet random teenagers wipe the floor with them with a little practice.
three houses has crests as well
On the other hand, Cecilia is the Mage general but she's got nothing going for her that would justify that besides weapon ranks. She's mounted as well but riding a horse is not something that would make you Mage general.
If she would've had hard mode bonuses she'd be much better I guess hm
I actually had a similar experience with FE6. I missed the true ending on my first playthrough cause I wasn't sure how to recruit Douglas at the time and I missed the Aureola tome. Got it on my second go around luckily. All around, FE6 is a solid experience and definitely one of the more difficult games of the series, but still a fun time in the end.
#1 reason why this has to be our favorite FE: It has our boy, Roy. Need i say more? 😂
Sacred stones only has a couple less chapters, but it has the tower and the ruins for getting those Extra game characters.
Fe8 chapters are much shorter though.
The argument Realism=Good is a pet peeve of mine. I don't care if something is realistic, I want to know why that thing is good. Your reasoning for each character being distinct because they're not all power houses is fine, regardless of how close that is to reality. Variety is neat and making bad characters work is fun.
While realism certainly doesn't simply = good, grounding a world in a healthy dose of reality can help people believe in the world and become more invested as a result. Obviously saying "this is good because it's realistic" isn't a good argument unless you support that with why that matters. In this case, I would say the realism he talked about would help with investment by helping people believe the characters are real people, increasing the investment in both the characters and, by proxy, the war those characters are in. At least, if realism is something that matters to you subjectively, but that applies to anything that can help, harm, or help and harm a piece of media.
@@gorade1901 I would say realism is more important story wise rather than in gameplay. I really don't think Fire Emblem gameplay is realistic, nor will it ever be. I think the "realism" Mangs is referring to the video is really just unit variety.
Ultimately I think it's a taste thing. It gets pretty obvious when it comes to games that go beyond themselves to be as realistic as possible, such as Red Dead Redemption 2. I completely agree that it doesn't make for a good argument as a result though, since it's not even close to an objective quality.
I remember hearing that the lead director for The Legend of Zelda would often tell his staff "Make it real, not realistic." Unless my memory is lying to me, I think what he was getting at is to make sure everything makes sense in the context of the world they're making. The weapon triangle would be a good example of that; even if the weapons don't have that relationship in the real world, it works in the context of Fire Emblem because the weapons operate within the weapon triangle for the games that have it.
Characters don't have to be equally viable, but I don't see a reason to completely gimp certain characters just to make others look better in comparison. There's NO reason why units like wolt, the armor knights, Dorothy, and oh god Sophia should have been as shitty as they are. You can have weaker characters, but i don't think they should be so over the top ass compared to the top tiers. You can make a good character look good without making other characters garbage. Conquest and awakening to a lesser extent did it better. They had good and bad characters of course, but there was no equivalent of wolt or sophia; the bad characters (odin, mozu, nyx, Donnell, virion, etc.) were still usable with decent effort as opposed to an extreme amount of effort with FE6 low tiers only for the character to still be mediocre at the end of the game.
I can't agree with you on character ballance issue's. I prefer fates /awakening where most if not all units are viable. In those games I can use the units I want without worrying "I wish this unit didn't suck". It's not as fun for me, where the new games, I can choose who I wan't to without such worries. and conquest is still a fun and hard game without the characters being bad. It gives more replayability where I can choose whoever I want to. in the 6th game, It's hard enough to grind units to usable stats, and thats not fun.
I mean, all units in FE6 are viable. you'll just have to work harder to use them. When I first played FE7 the first 3ish times, I always used Oswin, because without him, i didnt think i could beat the game (i turtled a lot). since then, ive beaten the game like 17 times, and have taken every single unit to the final chapter. even units like Will, Dart, Rebecca, Serra, Lowen, Matthew, Lucius, rath, Guy, Raven, Nino, Legault. Literally everyone. (i kept track because that was my goal) And I used the units from start to finish. As soon as they joined, I dropped whoever wouldn't be going, and used the new recruit instead. It takes skill, trial-and-error, and patience, but every unit IS viable. if you want the easiest time however, yes, you can use the best units only.